Evren scanned the room, but the magisters were nowhere to be seen. Even the senior casters were too far away to call for. Should he run and get some help?
He looked down at the crumpled form sitting beside him. Veronica’s face was a mask of pain, and her breathing sounded bad. Too shallow and too quick.
“...I don’t feel so good.”
Her words came out flat, and Evren felt fear creeping over him. She was definitely suffering from mana strain. If she didn’t get rid of the excess soon, she could die and it would be all his fault.
“Cast your candle spell again!”
“Uggghh…”
She tried. Still secured to the table, her arm extended in front of her, she fought to form shapes while enduring the pain. But her fingers were unsteady and the spell fizzled. She no longer had enough control over her body to cast even the simplest spells.
“Hold still, Veronica. I’m going to try something.”
There was a spell he’d learned years ago. A trick he’d tried just as he was learning to manage the flow of his mana out of his fingertips. It was a dirty little trick, but in this situation it may turn out to be a life-saver.
“I’m going to try to cast a reverse mana conduit and suck it back out of you. They call this spell mana leech.”
His hands touched her stomach once more. The lean stretch of muscle was sticky with sweat and convulsed even before he could get started.
…How did he invoke the leech again?
It was a nasty spell that he remembered very little about. The nausea that came over him. The disgust he felt, draining the mana from another caster like a parasite. But he needed to cast it again, and he wished to the heavens he had taken the time to practice the mental invocation. One wrong move and he could do her more harm than good. He just had to focus.
His eyes moved up to her chest where her lungs were pumping air in and out like a set of bellows. The sight there caught him off-guard.
Her boobs were swollen up like balloons. Near bursting with the energy building up inside of her. Two small buttons were valiantly holding her white shirt shut. An impossible task. This was where the sucking would have to be done. That's it! It started with a solid tube and an energy vacuum.
“Your breasts,” he exclaimed, unable to tear his eyes away. “I’m going to try to siphon the excess mana out of them.”
“Okay.”
It was one thing saying the words, but a complete other thing casting the spell. Evren hesitated. This was urgent, so he was going to have to try skin-to-skin. But how could he make such a request? Especially to this bully of a girl.
“I’m going to have to unbutton your shirt…”
“Just do it!”
Her voice was like a whip crack and a death rattle at once, urgent and edging close to nothingness. His body finally found an override to his slow and careful speed and leapt into action.
He thumbed the two buttons and jerked her shirt open with both hands. Her breasts sprang out, reddened and round like full, ripe melons. Her slender back arched thrusting them towards him, making their enormous size stand out even further. Her nipples, engorged with mana, spread wide, poking left and right. Hard little nubs.
“Beautiful…” he gasped and then realized his mistake. This girl was fighting for her life. She was breathing at a frantic pace and all he could think was how amazing she looked inhaling. Here was a girl filled to the point of pain and discomfort. He would treat her like a nurse would. Like a surgeon. He was going to save her.
“Ahem… I’m going to touch them now.”
“Nnnnghhn…”
At his very first contact, she released a low moan. He could immediately feel the blood flowing hot through her. Her heart was pumping too fast.
The skin beneath his hand was taut, stretched to the point of extreme firmness. His fingers spread wide, taking as much of her into his palms as he could manage. Each breast had grown to be as big as her head. Inadvertently, one of his fingers flicked her nipple, sending a shudder through her.
"Ahhhnn..."
“Now, to create the necessary channel…”
One line of solid mana and then another flowed from his palms. It was a special kind of line, like the proboscis of a mosquito, but this one didn’t suck blood. It sucked energy.
Mana leech was a near perfect reversal of the mana conduit. Instead of giving he was taking. An invasion of her reserves. A robbery of her essence. He was like a parasite now, piercing her skin with his invisible mana tubes.
The first smattering of mana flowed in through his arms and down to his belly, where it mixed with his reserves like a drop of water in a pond. What was that taste?
“Nnnnggh…”
A groan escaped Veronica’s lips. Small and sensual… she sounded relieved.
Both his hands flexed, squeezing the full mammaries, milking her like she was livestock. But his narrow tubes wouldn't permit him to suck any faster than that, and the feel of her body in his hands only served to distract him further.
“Focus on the flow,” he said quietly to himself.
That taste… It was sweet. Like melted sugar sitting on his tongue. This was the taste of Veronica!
He recalled now that he’d only ever performed this spell on his tutor before. A strong caster, but he was forty years old, well past his prime. As far as he could remember, he had tasted of grit and old spices.
But this girl… she was youthful and healthy. Her mana was a delicious snack that he couldn’t get enough of.
Slowly, he could feel the lines opening wider. And the mana flowed in.
He stayed like that for some time. His physical grip never loosening on her. His mana leech pulling the excess out of her, until he found the the handfuls he was grabbing had grown softer, more malleable. Her eyes were sharp once more, and she was watching him.
“I-I feel better.”
The sound was weak, but it was her regular voice once more.
“Y-You’re squeezing so much.”
“... Sorry.”
Evren’s hands snapped away. A wave of remorse hit him as the mana leech cut off. Looking down, he was alarmed to see that he’d left two red handprints across her delicate skin.
“I am very sorry! Did I hurt you?”
“Well, I’ve been better…” she said with a wince, as she looked down at her unbuttoned shirt. “I feel like I’ve been ripped apart and sewn up again.”
Evren groaned loudly enough that it echoed across the hall. Heads spun around towards them.
“Uurghh!... My tutor always said mana conduit can be as deadly as a mana blast. I should have been more careful!”
“Don’t blame yourself, Evren,” she said, leaning her head against him. Her golden hair tickled his nose.
Evren looked down at her hopeful eyes and languid smile. She looked like she needed a big meal and a full night’s rest. The angry red handprints would probably take longer than a day to fade from her perfect breasts.
“Things’ll go smoother tomorrow… but now you’ve got to my partner again, right?”
He was too choked up to answer right away. His eyes misted over.
How could he say no?
* * * * * * * * *
He left the Assembly Hall an hour earlier than the rest of the class. Not because he had wanted to, but because the magisters had seemed just as concerned with his health as they were about Veronica’s.
When they heard about her close-call with mana strain, there had been a brief commotion. The Stratega even got involved. They analyzed and examined her, poked and prodded her, until they declared her healthy enough to go back to her dorm.
Evren had protested, explaining how close to death she had really come. Veronica, who was released from her bindings by this time, stood alongside him, leaning against him for support.
“Oooh… You’re such a good partner!”
Her free hand had found its way to his behind, which she patted and squeezed enthusiastically. He was already regretting his promise to partner with her again.
In the end, it had been decided that a senior caster would escort her to the Healers Station at the top of the Nexus. The Stratega herself sent Evren home to rest.
“You look like you’ve been through an ordeal as well. Take the rest of the morning off."
Evren bowed.
“Thank you, Stratega. I’m sorry for causing so much trouble.”
The willowy woman looked even more imposing close up. Her gaze moved up and down his body, never once looking him in the eye.
“Hmmm? Yes… Get some rest, but make sure you don’t sleep through midday meal. A big boy like you needs to eat.”
* * * * * * * * *
And so it was that Evren arrived back at his dorm at just the right moment to see his always-dignified roommate stumbling out of the dorm with her shirt untucked and her long brown hair in a wild mess.
Her eyes widened as they ran face-to-face into each other.
“E-E-Evren! This isn’t what it seems.”
He suppressed a smile. As badly as his first day was going, at least he was doing better than Lyra.
“It looks like you slept through half the morning.”
Lyra’s shoulders drooped. It was exactly what it seemed like.
“I missed the first Assembly and my best chance to partner with a boy. My head is throbbing like it’s about to explode.”
She was looking up at him and he could sense that she was waiting for him to offer his support as he had done the night before. To pat her head and say that everything was going to be okay.
“I warned you not to drink alcohol last night…”
Support was not something he could muster at the moment. The events of the morning had exhausted him to the point that he had no pity left for her drunkenness. She had brought this upon herself. He pushed by her and headed inside.
“...I didn’t want to drink. Dia made me!” she cried from behind him.
Evren stopped. A chill ran over him at the mention of his sister’s name. He turned around and saw her standing there. She looked small and afraid.
“She what?”
“She and her friends. They were making me drink.”
Her arms were stiff by her sides. Tight fists and white knuckles. Was she lying? Making up a story to pass the blame?
“...She said I’m not good enough to be your support partner.”
Her voice was shaking now.
Evren’s head dropped to his chest. No, that sounded like his sister.
“C’mon Lyra. Come back inside. You can tell me all about it over tea.”
The exhaustion had reached new heights. He turned and started plodding down the dark passageway. He couldn't hear her, but he sensed that she was following along right behind him.